By Mulengera ReportersLed by Dr. Abdul Salaam Waiswa, state prosecutors from Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) have intensified efforts to have 26 year-old Ernest Edengel rot in jail as punishment for his wrongful and fraudulent acts. The Primary School teacher has been remanded in Luzira since October last year.
This was after succesfully impersonating former Pallisa Agule County MP Francis Mukula (was in 10th Parliament), in whose name he has successfully been extorting money from unsuspecting people in his Agule constituency in Pallisa district.
Edengel, who actually hails from the same Katuke village (in Kawakura Sub County in Pallisa) as Hon Francis Mukula, obtained a simcard of another village resident who, by some coincidence, was also called Francis Mukula. This enabled him to keep communicating to many Agule County residents who were under the impression that they were actually communicating to their MP.
Mainly targeting teachers and health workers seeking promotion and placement on the government payroll, Edengel would ring to say the relevant Commissioners at the Education & Health Service Commissions in Kampala wanted money to do the needful. He would say “as your area MP, I have done my best and linked you up.” He would advise such teachers and health workers to take it up from there.
Then the relevant ‘Commissioners’ would be facilitated to speak to the targeted victims on phone. The (fictitious) Commissioner would then advise the teacher or health worker to finalize with his or her Personal Assistant called James Ojangole. The PA would receive the phone call and encourage the targeted teacher or health worker to urgently send the money on 0707080301, which was registered in his names.
Someone falsely believed to be Hon Francis Mukula would immediately after call such teachers and health workers to encourage them to finalize the deal quickly, making it clear to them the whole thing was genuine. This Kiwaani Hon Mukula Francis would call using 0786048140, which was indeed registered in his names.
In actual sense, this was Edengel calling and having previously served as the real Mukula’s campaign agent, the Primary School teacher knew how to perfectly mimic and speak like the real honorable. Whoever checked the line by trying to send money on it, would get to see how it was registered in Francis Mukula’s names.
So, that’s how Edengel created false confidence in his targets who ended up sending the money to 0707080301 well convinced this was for the onward submission to the Commissioner for whom James Ojangole, in whose name it was registered, was a Personal Assistant. Yet in actual sense, even this Ojangole James line was in the hands and custody of the same Edengel.
He knew how to change his voice and sound a different person and James Ojangole, the supposed PA, dealt with each of the victims seperately. They wouldn’t get to know their other fellow victims’ experiences.
Assured that Francis Mukula, their former MP, was in the picture, many such teachers and health workers found no problem selling family land, gardens, cows and goats to raise the money that was being required in order for them to get promotion or placement on the government payroll. Some took out all their savings from community SACCOs to be able to raise the money in anticipation of better opportunities.
Depending on one’s capacity to raise the money, each of the victims was tricked into parting with between Shs800,000 and Shs1.5m. Those targeted were from the different Sub Counties of Agule County and the extortion campaign went on for years. In the process, Edengel was able to make a killing raising millions of shillings for himself. Some of the victims would be pensioners who were promised the money (800k-1.5m) would be used to expedite the processing of their arrears in Kampala.
Some of the victims include Daniel Elyek (from whom Shs450, 000 was extorted), Rose Sibika (conned Shs1.5m), Peter Osron (Shs800,000) and Jacqueline Asekenye among others. Many of these, after waiting for the promised jobs in vain, began complaining to local leaders and even Police how “Hon Francis Mukula” had misled them into a scam of some sort.
It was at that point in time that Hon Francis Mukula realized that his name had all along been used to steal from unsuspecting members of the public. And that even his political opponents had started riding on that to depict him as unworthy and unfit to be voted back to the Agule County office.
The legislator naturally got concerned and reported the matter to Police but, for months, no much progress was made given the generally high levels of inefficiency with which the Uganda Police Force has for years been synonymous. Detectives at the Seeta Police Station under Mukono, where he first reported, tossed him up and down until Hon Francis Mukula gave up, as he resorted to explaining himself to the community members in Pallisa.
Then one day, at a public function, he stumbled on old friend Nyombi Thembo, his former colleague in Parliament, who had earlier on become Executive Director for UCC. He narrated to him his experience and the ED indicated to him that Uganda Communications Commission has the capacity to handle such matters.
That’s how SP Josephine Alupo, a Police detective attached to UCC’s cyber security unit, was assigned to investigate what originally looked like a very complicated crime syndicate. Upon interviewing Francis Mukula, the complainant, Alupo started on the difficult task of unraveling the crime and who the perpetrators were. It was costly and took plenty of her time and resources.
She had to put together a team of detectives and trackers too. The first thing they did was to track down the real Francis Mukula (not the Honorable), from whom the airtel line (0786048140) was obtained by Edengel and his accomplices. Working with the relevant telecos, she obtained the photos and registration details for the simcard.
Francis Mukula (not the Honorable) was indeed tracked down in Katuka village in Pallisa going about his business. They took him to Pallisa Police Station from where he was interogated. He revealed he had two lines both of which were stolen but only replaced one when his phone, in which they were, was stolen. He was yet to replace the second one-0786048140.
This was the exact simcard which Edengel, with whom Francis Mukula, the villager had nothing to do, had been using to defraud people in the Honorable MP’s name. In the end, Mukula, the villager, was released on Police bond after it was established that he was after all innocent. The hunt for the real fraudster (Edengel) continued though he was elusive and indeed, he was the man with the line (0786048140) though he kept eluding capture by regularly switching it off.
As for the second line (0707080301), the real James Ojangole was tracked to St. Francis School of Health Sciences in Mukono where he is a student. He was briefly held by Police.
He explained the number originally belonged to him but got stolen in his phone as he slept at night in his hostel. Gratefully, he had proof to show he had reported the matter to Police. The stolen gadget had two lines but Ojangole James, the student, only replaced one and not both.
ASP Josephine Alupo and other detectives resorted to tracking down numbers which had been in regular contact with Edengel on that number. It was established that one of these frequent contacts was a female teacher at a school in Busiika Luwero, and specifically Kawusum Primary School. It turned out she was a teacher called Gloria.
She admitted Edengel used to be her fellow teacher there but had left the school months earlier. With Gloria’s help, the Alupo-led detectives were led to Mirembe PTC in Busiika. On 26th February this very year (2025), they stormed the school and found Edengel in class teaching.
They introduced themselves and on being searched, Edengel was found with a total of 12 simcards including 0707080301 and 0786048140 respectively registered in the names of Ojangole James and Francis Mukula respectively. In total, he had 12 simcards and carried them in his pockets.
All this was established through code checking. Led by ASP Josephine Alupo, the detectives from UCC established these indeed are the lines that had been used to call victims referenced earlier on in this story. In doing all this, Alupo had other cyber crime investigators including Afande George Barasa and two others specialized trackers namely Baker and Otema Emma.
Upon apprehension, Edengel was driven to Kasangati Police Division from where he was interogated in the presence of Hon Francis Mukula, the complainant. Nearly tearful, Edengel went down on his knees, owning up to everything and apologized to Francis Mukula in the presence of detectives.
“Besides making the money, Honorable I did all this to politically disorganize you to avenge the betrayal I endured when you refused to get for me the good job you had promised to get for me during the campaign time,” confessed Edengel who also informed detectives that this is something into which he later recruited one of Mukula’s political opponents in Agule County in order to keep the project going.
All the numbers and simcards Edengel was caught with (can’t readily be disclosed to avoid jeopardizing the ongoing investigations) have since been tendered in Court as exhibits by the UCC prosecutors who have been prosecuting the case. They are continuing to adduce evidence before Her Worship Glady Kamasanyu, the trial Magistrate at the Makindye-based Standards, Utilities & Wildlife Court.
They have been bringing witnesses (including Hon Francis Mukula, ASP Josephine Alupo etc) to give evidence implicating Edengel, a stone-faced short man who doesn’t seem to be repentant at all. He has been very notorious in cross examining some of these witnesses. He is self-represented with no means to afford hiring a private lawyer to defend him.
Edengel, who at some point owned up to the offence and even asked for forgiveness, has vowed to go down fighting and he has been cruel and harsh, almost intimidating his accusers, each time he is in the dock to listen to and cross examine prosecution witnesses.
The trial process is ongoing and the victims, whose money he extorted and took without delivering the promised job opportunities, want their money refunded by him and yet the state, through the UCC prosecutors, all they want is to have him convicted and sentenced to maximum sentencing.
In the meantime, Honorable Francis Mukula is hopeful there will finally be justice for him whose name was destroyed and for the dozens of victims whose hard-earned money was taken. Honorable Francis Mukula is also grateful and full of praises for UCC whose intervention brought to an end the criminal and very damaging misrepresentation he had endured for all those years. In the process, this diminished his name and made him to be misunderstood among his own voters in Agule County.
Prosecutors from UCC have vowed to work towards conviction and subsequently secure the possible maximum sentencing in order to serve as a deterrence while scaring other would-be future offenders or fraudsters and impersonators since such conning and impersonation instances are lately on the increase in the country by rogue-minded actors who leverage simcard technology and coincidence of names to perpetrate their mischievous conduct. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
